Mistress and Maid: A Household StoryCraik, Dinah Maria Mulock
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Mistress and Maid: A Household Story
Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock
England -- Fiction; Household employees -- Fiction; Master and servant -- Fiction
And the various "Sallys" and their corresponding swains can hardly
feel more regret than she when it happens to be wet weather on Easter
week or at Whitsuntide.
Whit-Monday, the day when Tom escaped from the printing-office, and
Elizabeth got leave of absence for six hours, was as glorious a June
day as well could be. As the two young people perched themselves on
the top of the Richmond omnibus and drove through Kensington,
Hammersmith, Turnham Green, and over Kew Bridge--Tom pointing out all
the places, and giving much curious information about them--Elizabeth
thought there never was a more beautiful country, or a more lovely
summer day: she was, she truly said, "as happy as a Queen."
Neverthless, when the omnibus stopped, she, with great self-denial,
insisted on getting rid of Tom for anytime. She thought Miss Hilary
might not quite like Tom's knowing where she lived, or what her
occupation was, lest he might gossip about it to Stowbury people; so
she determined to pay her visit by herself, and appointed to meet him
at a certain hour on Richmond Bridge, over which bridge she watched
him march sulkily, not without a natural pleasure that he should be
so much vexed at losing her company for an hour or two. But she knew
he would soon come to himself--as he did, before he had been half a
mile on the road to Hampton Court, meeting a young fellow he knew,
and going with him over that grand old palace, which furnished them
with a subject at their next debating society, where they both came
out very strong on the question of hypocritical priests and obnoxious
kings, with especial reference to Henry VIII, and Cardinal Wolsey.
Meanwhile Elizabeth went in search of the little shop--which nobody
need expect to find at Richmond now--bearing the well-known name
"Janet Balquidder." Entering it, for there was no private door, she
saw, in the far corner above the curtained desk, the pretty curls of
her dear Miss Hilary. Elizabeth had long known that her mistress
"kept a shop," and with the notions of gentility which are just as
rife in her class as in any other, had mourned bitterly over this
fact. But when she saw how fresh and well the young lady looked, how
busily and cheerfully she seemed to work with her great books before
her, and with what a composed grace and dignity she came forward when
asked for, Elizabeth secretly confessed that not even keeping a shop
had made or could make the smallest difference in Miss Hilary.
She herself was much more changed.
"Why, Elizabeth, I should hardly have known you!" was the involuntary
exclamation of her late mistress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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